


Chaconne

by triskaidekaphilia



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, Light Angst, M/M, Music, Prompt Fic, Romance, Technical Terms, Violin!lock, for the violin i mean, johnlockchallenges, violin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-14
Updated: 2014-02-14
Packaged: 2018-01-12 07:53:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1183779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/triskaidekaphilia/pseuds/triskaidekaphilia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock's up to something and John wants to know what it is. </p><p>Not Series 3 compliant.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chaconne

**Author's Note:**

  * For [that_sexy_genius](https://archiveofourown.org/users/that_sexy_genius/gifts).



> Written for the [Johnlock Valentine's Day Gift Exchange.](http://johnlockchallenges.tumblr.com/) [that-sexy-writer](http://that-sexy-writer.tumblr.com/) requested: "Violin Serenade."
> 
> I was going to make this work with Series 3, but I really couldn't without referencing my long, complicated headcanons, so I have no idea where this fits into canon. Oh well.
> 
> Unbeta'd and UnBritpick'd due to time constraints, so if you see any problems, please let me know!

John woke slowly and reached blindly across the bed only to find cold blankets. He sat up and blinked. He was used to Sherlock not being in bed in the mornings, but they’d been on a case for nearly four days straight and John had expected him to be out until at least noon. John would have gotten up, made himself some breakfast, and enjoyed the rare silence of a sleeping Sherlock. Then, around eleven, he’d hop back into bed to be there when Sherlock woke up, horny and wanting sleepy sex. This had been the routine for longer cases since the pair had gotten together months ago; so where was Sherlock?

John didn’t have to wait long to find out. As he stood up to get dressed, he heard the faint sound of a violin being cleaned. Most people probably wouldn’t notice it, but after living with Sherlock for years, John had become accustomed to the subtle squeak of cloth against rosined strings. It was especially loud today, so Sherlock must have been playing for several hours, caking on rosin with every swipe of his bow. _That’s weird_ , John thought. If Sherlock had been playing for so long, how had he not woken John up?

Actually, now that he thought about it, did Sherlock get any sleep at all last night? As he pulled on jeans, John racked his brain to remember if Sherlock had even come to bed, but all he could see were blankets and warm sheets as he had practically collapsed from exhaustion. If Sherlock had eventually crawled in next to him, John wasn’t sure.

“Sherlock!” he called, ready once again with a lecture on not getting enough sleep. He walked out of the bedroom, pulling on a jumper as he went, only to find the sitting room empty. Normally, Sherlock practised his violin in front of the windows, but as John moved through the kitchen, he didn’t see him. He was about to chalk up the sound he’d heard to over exhaustion and angrily text the mad bugger for leaving without notice _again_ , when he entered the sitting room to find one curled up detective asleep on the couch.

At first glance, one might think that Sherlock had been there all night, but John could tell that this was a new position. For one, his dressing gown was still wrapped around him; Sherlock was a very restless sleeper—John couldn’t count how many times he’d woken up to find long limbs thrashed about him, only to calm down somewhere on the other side of the bed five minutes later—and after a few hours that dressing gown would either be thrown somewhere improbable or caught up between Sherlock’s face and a pillow, nearly suffocating the man. If that weren’t enough, though, Sherlock’s breathing was entirely too laboured for him to be completely asleep. And, of course, there was the very obvious haphazardly put away violin case beside the couch, a piece of the red velvet blanket sticking out of the zipper. Sherlock never let the blanket get caught. _Unless he’s in a hurry, apparently._

Sherlock must have spent the night playing and then fallen asleep when he heard John get up. But why? And why had been playing so quietly, as John realised he must have done not to wake him sooner. Normally, Sherlock didn’t care one way or the other if he woke up the whole of Baker Street, as long as no one interrupted his practising. More often than not, John would resign himself to staying up listening to Sherlock play, eventually passing out once the madman realised that John wasn’t sleeping and remembering that _some people_ actually needed to do that every once in a while.

John sighed and decided to let it go, chalking it up to another one of Sherlock’s mercurial moods. He let the detective feign sleep, hoping it would transform into the real thing after a while, and went about making breakfast.

At about two o’clock, Sherlock’s phone beeped, breaking the silence that had filled the flat for several hours. John had busied himself by typing up the case; it had been a complicated one and had taken most of the morning and past lunch for him to get it all down.

John looked towards the door where Sherlock’s phone sat in his coat pocket, then glanced to where its owner lay on the couch. Sherlock’s head rose sleepily. He blinked then launched himself towards the coat, lazily graceful, like a cat. John couldn’t help but marvel at the improbable flexibility of that tall frame, remembering when that flexibility had been proved in many. . . er. . . _unconventional ways_.

“What is it?” he asked, shaking his head from the very dirty memories currently playing there.

“Lestrade,” Sherlock said, not looking up from the phone.

“Case?” John closed his laptop, preparing to follow Sherlock off into the next adventure. “We just had one, don’t the criminal classes ever sleep?”

“Apparently not.”

Sherlock told him about the apparent OD—“ _Obviously_ not suicide, John, she was _poisoned.”_ —as he put on his trademark dress shirt and perfectly-fitted trousers. They rushed out of the flat so quickly that John completely forgot about Sherlock's odd behaviour that morning.

In fact, John didn’t remember anything about the quiet night-playing until 37 hours later, once Sherlock had proven that the victim’s ex-girlfriend had done it to get back at her for keeping their relationship in the closet. It turned out that the victim, Alison Manning, was a partner at a major law firm that had come out against homosexual relationships and she wasn’t willing to put her career on the line for the girlfriend. Of course, she didn’t know about the girlfriend’s history of erratic violence that ultimately culminated in the clever poisoning by chocolate; apparently Manning ordered a box of almond creams from the same place every month like clockwork. The girlfriend had intercepted the sweets and laced them with heroin and cyanide, the almond masking the altered flavour. Manning would have been fine if she hadn’t devoured the entire box in under ten minutes.

Sherlock worked out the means in a matter of hours, but the closeted love affair had taken the better part of a day to discover, Manning had kept the secret so well. So by the time John and Sherlock returned to the flat in the wee hours of the morning, John was completely knackered. He made a beeline for the bedroom, stripping clumsily on the way. As he fell onto the bed, he realised that Sherlock was still in the sitting room.

_Oh lord, not again._ After two long, stressful cases in a row, John was very much not in the mood to be worrying about Sherlock. John tried to close his eyes ignore the detective’s absence, but his conscience got the better of him. _The bastard’s going to work himself to death,_ he thought as he got back up.

“Sherlock,” John called, wandering into the sitting room. “Are you coming to bed, or what? You need sleep too, you—”

He didn’t get halfway through the room before Sherlock suddenly appeared within inches of him, catching John’s lips with his own, essentially stopping John his tracks.

Caught off guard, he couldn’t help but return the kiss automatically, his brain temporarily stalled. Then his senses returned and he pulled back against Sherlock’s hand, which had come round his waist at some point. “What are you doing?” he asked suspiciously.

“Kissing you. I thought it was rather obvious.”

“No, you know what I mean.” John could see Sherlock’s violin case open on the couch behind them and he frowned. “Sherlock, you’ve barely slept six hours in as many days. The violin will still be here in the morning.”

Now it was Sherlock’s turn to frown.

John could see an argument coming and he was way too exhausted to deal with it. “You know what? Never mind. Do what you want. I’m going to bed.”

Sherlock grinned and kissed John again.

Before he left, John said, “You know you don’t have to play quietly, right? I like hearing you.”

“Don’t be absurd.” Sherlock busied himself with removing his violin from its case and putting on the shoulder rest. “Your brain needs sleep.” The _unlike mine_ was implied. “I already cause you to lose enough as it is. Now go.” He shooed John towards the bedroom with the bow as he rosined it.

John was smiling as he went, unused to Sherlock being so considerate. As he settled back into bed, however, the smile faded to a grimace. _Oh god, he’s up to something, isn’t he?_

 

For two weeks, John had to endure sleeping alone. Sherlock slept, of course, but not when John did. They didn’t have a case in all that time and John was getting right bored. Not that Sherlock should have been paying him bushels of attention—in fact, during dry spells, Sherlock would often go for days without really talking to John. But he had always come to bed sometime in the night, whether when John turned in or five hours later, and had usually gotten up around when John did, either to experiment or to shag John senseless.

Either way, their sleep schedules had never been too far off, meaning John at least got to _speak_ to the git for more than a few minutes at a time. Lately, Sherlock was always asleep when John was up and vice versa, though John wasn’t quite sure what Sherlock was _doing_ so late at night. He was fairly certain it had something to do with the violin, but what that was remained a mystery.

He had come close to finding out a few times, though. John had gotten up very quietly one morning and had made it all the way into the bathroom before Sherlock had noticed and instantly stopped playing. Another time, John had woken from a mild nightmare very early in the morning. The violin seemed to be very loud, and he figured Sherlock had assumed everyone fast asleep and felt bold enough to play out.

John had managed to hear about five notes before it suddenly cut off and the sound of footsteps quickly replaced it. Sherlock appeared in the doorway, obviously concerned. John had simply nodded, knowing not to state the obvious, and Sherlock immediately climbed into the bed, catching John up in his arms. John let it happen, not really giving a damn about Sherlock’s bloody violin at the moment. He soon fell back asleep, comforted by Sherlock’s presence, though he knew the detective was nowhere near slumber himself.

When he had woken the next morning, Sherlock was gone. John had found him sprawled out on the sofa and the cycle continued as if uninterrupted.

Several days later, he was coming back from Tesco, shopping in arms, when he heard the sound of Sherlock’s violin. He stopped at the foot of the stairs, listening. He hadn’t listened to Sherlock properly play for ages, the bastard had been doing it so sneakily, and it was nice to hear the crisp notes, even slightly diluted through the ceiling. The piece wasn’t something he recognised and he wondered if Sherlock had been composing. If he didn’t want anyone to hear his work in progress, it might explain the strangeness of the past two weeks.

John closed the door behind him and the music instantly stopped. _Are you fucking kidding me._ John launched up the stairs, completely _sick_ of all this secretive behaviour and not-talking. He dropped the bags from Tesco in the landing and stormed into the sitting room, grabbing Sherlock by the shirt before the latter knew what was going on. Luckily, the violin had already made it back into its case, otherwise it would have been crushed between John and Sherlock as John turned around, shoving Sherlock flush against the wall.

“What the hell have you been doing?” John was probably overreacting, but he really didn’t give a fuck. He was done with this.

“John, I don’t know what—” Sherlock started, but John cut him off.

“Yeah, you do, so shut up. You’ve been keeping whatever this shit you’re doing a complete secret and I’m bloody tired of it. I need you to be honest with me and tell me why you’ve had to practise while I’m asleep then stop the second I wake up. So I ask again: _What the hell are you doing?”_

Sherlock sighed and John released his grip a bit to give him room to breathe. “I’m writing you a song.” He said it the way a little kid might admit to having been bad, like he’d coloured on the walls or broken a toy.

John leaned back, stunned, and let Sherlock go. “You’re what?”

“I’m writing you a song, all right?” Sherlock glared and straightened his shirt from where John had balled it up in his fist.

“Why?” was all John could think to say. “And why keep it a secret?”

“It was supposed to be a present.” Sherlock sighed, clearly put out by the need to explain. “I was going to play it for you tomorrow.”

“What on earth for?”

He rolled his eyes. “Honestly, John, isn’t romance _your_ area?”

John just stared blankly.

Sherlock sighed again and John would have punched him for being so bloody arrogant if he weren’t so taken aback by the entire situation. “Tomorrow is the anniversary of our first kiss. I wanted to do something for it and since neither of us particularly enjoys fancy restaurants or the like, I found a song to be a suitable substitute.”

John continued staring for another second before grabbing Sherlock tightly into his arms. “You’re an idiot,” he said fondly.

“You are too,” Sherlock said, simultaneously irritated yet fond. “What did you think I was doing, planning some horribly fatal experiment with my _violin?”_

John pulled back, smiling. “It wouldn’t be wholly unprecedented.”

Sherlock smirked, conceding the point.

“So,” John said, walking to the couch and settling in. “Let’s hear it then.” He gestured to the violin in its case on the table.

“I’m sorry?”

John grinned. It had almost been worth the two plus weeks of silence to see Sherlock’s utterly befuddled look now. “You said you were going to play it for me tomorrow. I can’t wait that long—play it now.” He folded his arms and sat back, ready to listen.

“But it’s not ready.”

“Course it is. I’ve met you before, Sherlock Holmes. You’ve been practising for hours on end for ages. You probably had it ready days ago.”

“But it’s not _perfect_.”

“I won’t know the difference.”

Sherlock grumbled as he retrieved the violin from its case. It wasn’t often that John full out won an argument, and it made him very satisfied to see Sherlock admit defeat. _I could get used to this,_ he thought, his mind wandering to what it would be like if Sherlock were agreeable _all_ the time....

And then Sherlock’s bow made contact with the strings and John stopped thinking.

It was amazing, like nothing John had ever heard before. Sherlock started slow, his arm rotating languorously, as if it weighed nothing. The notes were bright and clear, Sherlock’s fingers as tall as mountains on the fingerboard, his vibrato warbling like a ripple across a still pond. There were several chords and Sherlock’s bow arched over the strings like a knife slicing through cream. It sounded rather melancholy and John wondered if it were in a minor chord, as Sherlock had basically forced him to be able to tell the difference between the majors and minors— _What if a case requires it, John?_

The piece built slowly, Sherlock's fingers steadily moving faster as he began to apply more pressure on the strings. He closed his eyes by now and was _feeling_ the notes more than playing them, John could tell. Each ringing note—yes, Sherlock had taught him those, too—vibrated across the instrument clearly, accented by Sherlock’s deep vibrato that resonated down in John’s bones.

He refused to close his eyes, tempted as he was to simply sit back and listen contentedly. He wanted to see Sherlock’s face as he produced such beautiful sound, watch him transform from stoic Consulting Detective into something softer and more passionate. Sherlock’s entire body moved with the notes, hips swinging forward with every down bow, backward with every up. His left elbow swung hard and fast with every string change, his wrist sliding swiftly with every shift of position. He never missed a beat, his head nodding almost imperceptibly at the start of every phrase.

As the notes got faster and louder, John became mesmerised as Sherlock lost himself in the music even more. His fingers flew across the fingerboard, completing runs in quick succession. Sherlock’s bow jumped back and forth between the higher pitches and the lower ones, his wrist snapping back to catch the lowest before returning the body of the instrument to play the uppermost octaves. His cadence was brilliant, even the most slurred notes emerging as individual entities, intoned with exacting quality.

_Not perfect my arse_ , John thought as each sustained pitch seemed to reach out and grab him by the heartstrings, dragging him closer to its sound and meaning. His eyes closed of their own volition, as if pulled down with every perfect B flat and D natural produced. He wilfully joined Sherlock inside the music, no longer simply hearing or seeing, but _feeling_. He knew what every chord change meant, what each crescendo represented. He could see their entire relationship fly before his eyes, punctuated with a varying tempo and a steady rhythm. It wasn’t just their relationship in the past year, though; it was every single thing they’d done together since that fateful day in Bart’s lab. Every case, every adventure, every happy ending they’d ever experienced in each other’s presence. John could feel how much he meant to Sherlock, how much Sherlock loved him. They hadn’t ever said the words, not in the year they’d been together, but they didn’t have to. The music said it for them.

As the pace slowed and the decrescendo began, John opened his eyes to again stare at Sherlock. He could see him resurfacing, finding his way back to reality. John was sad to return and he knew Sherlock felt the same: at some point during the crescendo, the piece had shifted to a major chord, but it was now back to the minor, lamenting the loss of intense connection, yet celebrating its existence. Sherlock’s bow was back to waving languidly, each note long enough for a vibrato to seep into John’s skin. His entire body was tingling as the song’s opening theme reappeared with the minor chord.

The notes suddenly picked up tempo again, and Sherlock quickly snapped the bow across the strings, his entire body moving with the force of it. After ten seconds of quick, staccato beats, Sherlock took a deep breath and drew out one final D chord. His bow whipped off the strings with a flourish, his fingers stilling the vibrating pitch just enough for a mild echo to make its way straight through John’s body, instilling itself in every cell to rest forevermore.

Sherlock opened his eyes and focussed on John, a question plainly being asked.

John nodded succinctly, unable to speak properly. “That. Was. _Brilliant_.”

Sherlock’s face lit up, his mouth twisting into the biggest grin John had ever seen. He immediately tried to cover it up, but John stood and kissed him before it could go too far. He would’ve shoved the violin—the beautiful, precious violin—to the ground had Sherlock not moved it above his head at the last second. The hand that still held the bow came round John’s waist and pulled him closer, deepening the kiss.

After a second of breathing the music in each other’s lungs, John pulled back. He couldn’t stop smiling for the life of him. “Thank you,” he breathed, although he had planned to say three very different words.

Sherlock smiled knowingly. “Happy anniversary, John.”

“Happy anniversary, you mad git.”

**Author's Note:**

> And then they fucked. ;-)
> 
> So there you go, my first fic, hopefully of many. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I've played the violin for six years so when I got that-sexy-writer's prompt, I was super psyched. If you have any questions about some of the technical terms I've used, feel free to ask.
> 
> [This](http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=QqA3qQMKueA) is the song I listened to while writing the actual violin scene. This is one of the hardest songs to play (trust me, I've seen the sheet music O.O) and I can totally see Sherlock perfecting it. Obviously, he's supposed to be playing an original work, but if he modeled himself on anyone, it'd probably be Bach.


End file.
